ENTWINE interview by Damjan
In a Land of a thousand lakes gothic metal became somewhat of a national sound, almost a folk of a kind. Finland gave us some of the biggest names on the international goth scene, and one of those most definitely is Entwine. Just like their compatriots Sentenced, this band draws its roots from death metal, but really blossomed through their own type of goth metal. As they have a new album out, entitled "Time Of Despair", we contacted Aksu, the drummer...
Can you tell us your
opinion on "Time of Despair"? How would you compare it to the other Entwine
albums?
Time of despair is pretty many-sided album than the previous ones. There
are some quite heavy and quite rocking songs and also some very easy songs.
Vocal parts are much stronger than ever and totally the new element in our music
are these electric elements (electric beats, sounds and stuff like that). The
production is higher than ever on our latest album. We made a lot of different
arrangements from these songs on our rehearsal room and after that we went to
studio to make some demo versions from our songs. And still after that our
producer Anssi Kippo made a very good work with our songs and gave his own
special notes to our songs.
You toured for this album with Theatre Of Tragedy. How do you feel about that
tour, and about TOT in general?
That tour was totally fantastic. We all liked it very, very much. ToT’s
dudes were very cool as the whole tour crew. I also liked ToT’s music pretty
much.
If you don't mind, we'd like to ask you a couple of questions from the early
days of Entwine. The band started as death metal outfit. How do you feel about
those early times?
It was a nice time and it was very nice to play that kind of music. And I
still like that kind of music. I would like to recommend one finish band called
Rotten Sound to everybody who likes fast grind/death stuff. It’s awesome.
What drove you to more melodic and gothic sound?
We started to listen also more different kind of music and then there
also came new influences to our music. Day by day it just developed to nowadays
style all by itself.
That gothic sound dominates Finish metal scene. In your opinion, why is gothic
metal so well received in Finland?
I really don’t know. Maybe long and dark winter is one reason that some
of finish people are pretty melancholic and looks like that in this group of
people there is pretty much rock musicians who likes to discharge depress
through out the music.
What is your opinion on other successful Finish goth bands - Him, Sentenced,
etc?
Sentenced is one of the best bands ever. But I don’t think their are goth.
They make very melancholic stuff but in my opinion they always have had their
own style and it’s not goth. It’s just sentenced. But it’s only my opinion.
Which is Entwine's musical dream, something that inspires you and makes you
create your music?
To get as far with this thing as it’s possible. There isn’t that kind of
so exact dreams like, after five years we have to be as big band as Kiss or
something. At least for me there isn’t.
Is there any Spinal Tap moment in Entwine's history - a moment which you would
rather not remember?
Yes, of course there is some and that’s why I can’t remember them, haha!
What are the plans for the Entwine's near future?
Now we are writing the new material and soon we are going to make some
demos from couple of songs. To studio to record our next album we are going on
next autumn. So, the new album will be released somewhere in the beginning of
2004.
Message for the Croatian fans?
Visit on our websites www.entwine.org
and if you haven’t heard our music earlier, you can download some mp3 samples to
check out. And if you liked them you can go to merchandise section and order our
CDs if you want. On merchandise section there is also available shirts and stuff
like that. And there is a lot of everything on our website, so check it out!
Rock on!!!